Conference season can feel like a blur of fringe events and long-winded speeches but as a graduate planner, I’ve found party conferences to be one of the clearest signals of where planning policy might go next. Five political parties spent September and early October in Birmingham, Brighton and Liverpool. Each told a different story about who should decide what gets built, where and at what cost. Some of what they said will end up in manifestos and some wont. But the next Planning Bill or the next administration running our local authorities, will draw on the thinking set out in these conferences. I have examined the coverage and recaps from the five conferences and pulled out what matters most for the planning sector.
Housing Delivery
Labour arrived in Liverpool with a new Prime Minister and a lighter mood, but also an awkward statistic. Around 437,900 net additional homes have been delivered between July 2024 and September 2026, which suggests the 1.5 million homes target by 2029 is slipping out of reach. After two years focused on the supply side, the Government announced ‘Your First Home Scheme,’ offering interest-free equity loans of up to 15% for first-time buyers of new-build homes, with deposits as low as 2.5% percent. It was also paired with a push for more council housebuilding and shorter vacancy periods before councils can take over empty homes.
The Lib Dems focused on delivery rather than permissions. Gideon Amos, the party’s Housing and Communities spokesperson and a former chartered town planner, argued that consents are already being granted but not built out, and that affordable homes should be the priority targets. His party would double the Government’s affordable housing spend.
The Greens put social and council housing at the centre, alongside a three-year emergency brake on private rent rises.
Reform repeated its pledge of 50,000 affordable social homes a year, but its Planning Teal Paper announced by the party’s Richard Tice would scrap national housing targets. Housebuilders told Reform at its own fringe events that this could cause delivery to collapse. Reform replied that the planning system, not the targets, is the constraint.
Planning Reform: What could change?
Reform’s paper is the most detailed planning proposal on the table. It would abolish spatial development strategies including the London Plan. Local plans would be capped at five years, map-based and stripped of policy, with a statutory national policy framework taking over. Councils would have a year to produce a plan, or the Planning Inspectorate could step in and commission private sector planners to do it.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, defended planning committees against Labour’s new national scheme of delegation, which pushes more minor decisions to officers rather than planning committees. Industry voices like Vistry and the RTPI, argued that councillors’ influence is better placed at the plan and design code stage which would allow officers to determine each application within an agreed framework.
Councillors from other parties were also split on the question, with Labours Brighton and Hove leader supportive and Oxford’s leader worried about losing local buy-in. The Lib Dems pushed a ‘local consent’ line, with decisions made through conversation in town and parish halls rather than in Whitehall.
Infrastructure and Economic Growth
On the eve of the conference, Badenoch published a 95-page essay ‘not a manifesto’ titled ‘The Right Way,’ outlining how the party will govern if returned to office. They used the Lower Thames Crossing as its case study, noting 16 years and more than 1.2 billion pounds in planning costs before construction began. Its answer was to cut regulation.
Labour and the Greens looked at infrastructure through devolution instead. Speakers from both argued that keeping more tax revenue locally could unlock projects like the Bakerloo Line extension. The Conservatives also pushed cheaper energy as a way to ease construction costs.
Climate and Sustainable Development
This is where parties diverge most sharply. The Conservatives want to abolish the Environment Agency and Natural England, scrap the Future Homes Standard and replace the Climate Change Act. Reform’s paper would repeal Biodiversity Net Gain and the Habitats Regulations for brownfield sites. The Greens backed community energy and more efficient homes, while ending their blanket opposition to nuclear power. The Lib Dems added a quieter point that I found interesting: “affordable” should mean cheap to run as well as cheap to buy, noting that a home that is affordable to buy or rent is not necessarily affordable to live in. Lib Dems also backed continuous walking and cycling infrastructure in new housing to promote connectivity.
Devolution and local-decision making
Labour’s new Prime Minister is pushing devolution of both powers and tax revenue with the “Manchesterism” debate running through the fringes. The complication is the pause on Local Government Reorganisation (the restructuring of councils, usually replacing two-tier county and district councils with single tier ‘unitary’ authorities that handle local services), which the Lib Dems and Labour leaders said leaves councils unable to plan. The Conservatives want councillors to keep decision-making powers, while Reform would centralise policy but leave local numbers to councils.
Where the parties agree and disagree
There was more common ground than the rhetoric suggest. Almost everyone agrees the system is too slow and too costly, and several parties raised the point that the value of development rarely reaches the communities who live next to it. The disagreements are about who decides (national policy under Reform, local consent under the Lib Dems), what to build (council homes versus brownfield first), and how much environmental regulation to keep. The unresolved problem is capacity; no party has yet explained convincingly how its approach would fix that
What does that mean for the planning profession?
For developers, landowners and communities: In Conservative- and Lib Dem-led areas, early engagement looks likely to determine whether a scheme succeeds. A Reform-led approach would favour brownfield schemes with fewer financial obligations. Greens and Labour will push social and council housing and stewardship of public land.
What to monitor and Conclusion
The 28th October Budget where the detail of “Your First Home Scheme” was unveiled.
Reform’s consultation on the Teal Paper, open until 31 December.
The Conservative Planning Review under Katie Lam.
Next year’s local elections.
Regardless of who governs after the next election, planners are likely to face continued pressure to speed up decisions with a stronger focus on affordability and delivery, and a harder question about who gets to say yes. For the planning sector, the safest assumption is that early engagement and clear evidence of public benefit will matter whichever party is in charge.
WEA Planning are advising clients on impacts of local and national politics on planning. Contact us today for advice in your area.